Email
Print
Arrest brings back bad memories for family
Relatives break 10-year silence after Ricky Clyde Prestwood is charged in death of homeless man.
ADVERTISEMENT
Published: October 11, 2008
HICKORY - For Ruby Hinson, learning Ricky Clyde Prestwood was charged with murder in the beating death of a homeless man was an unwelcome flashback to a day in 1998 she'd rather forget.
It was the week before Father's Day, and Hinson was watching TV in her living room. Her husband, Theodore Edward Hinson, known as "Papa," came to the back door, but it was locked. Mrs. Hinson got up to unlock the door, but didn't get there in time. Her husband already was headed toward the front door.
Mrs. Hinson said that's when she saw Prestwood, a homeless man her husband had befriended, throwing her husband's potted plants over a fence in the back yard. Her husband saved plants from construction sites for friends and family. Despite being upset at Prestwood, Hinson told his wife he was taking him to the store for cigarettes, she said.
A few minutes later, Mrs. Hinson looked out the front window and saw Prestwood beating her husband with a rake handle.
Ten years later, Mrs. Hinson sits in a rocking chair in her home telling the story again, wondering out loud if this time Prestwood would be found guilty of murder.
"I saw Prestwood beating him in the back with a rake," she said. "In 57 years of being married to this man, I'd never seen him on the ground. I was waiting for him to get up."
The Hinson family is lifting a 10-year silence about the death of a husband and father. The reason? The man Mrs. Hinson saw beat her husband to death is charged with the murder of another man.
Prestwood was arrested and charged June 22 with the murder of Travis Gilley. Police found Gilley's body behind the Toys R Us Store on U.S. 70, SE.
A family's pain
In Prestwood's 1998 murder trial, it was determined he acted in self-defense. The verdict enraged both the Hinson family and Prestwood's father.
After the trial, Prestwood's father, Clyde, said "My opinion is that Ricky has mental problems. When he's sober, not under the influence of drugs, he's a good guy. When he's drunk, on drugs or pot, he goes into a Jekyll-and-Hyde thing."
According to newspaper reports from 1998, Clyde Prestwood had not seen his son in a year before the trial. He said in the article his son had broken into his house and beaten him in 1996. He was charged and on probation for that crime when Theodore Hinson was killed.
Prestwood's arrest this summer brought back unwanted memories of June 14, 1998.
"Here it is, 10 years later, and he's charged with murder again," said Kathy Poovey, Hinson's daughter.
Poovey said she remembers her mother's call that afternoon and hearing her say, "For some reason, I can't get 9-1-1. Rick's hit your daddy in the head and I can't get him up."
That call started a chain reaction of calls alerting the family of the bad news. Poovey called her sister, Sandra Clark, whose husband was the first person at the scene.
Poovey said the police responded and secured the area and "did a really, really good job." However, the longer "Papa" was lying on the ground dead, the more upset his family became.
"It was just so hard to see him down there for so long," Poovey said, echoing her mother's words.
Poovey's son was in the yard that afternoon and had a difficult time seeing his usually strong grandfather's lifeless body.
"I was right there," said Bobby Pittman. "I got down on my knees beside my Papa. My uncle rolled him over and his face was as blue and purple as it could be."
Lt. Charles Wilson was the watch commander on duty that day and worked the crime scene. He said officers followed protocol.
"We did everything possible to respond to the scene and respect the family. We preserved the scene and presented the evidence to the DA for trial," Wilson said.
Prestwood was found a little more than an hour later, down by a creek in a wooded area off the 1900 block of 23rd Place NE, not far from the Hinson home.
'Papa tried to help everybody'
The thing that bothers the Hinson family the most is that Hinson was trying to help Prestwood get back on his feet.
"That's the thing that hurt us all so deeply because Papa tried to help everybody," Poovey said.
Hinson had taken Prestwood under his wing, giving him clothes and feeding him.
"The day he killed my daddy, he was wearing clothes that I gave him," Poovey said.
They didn't know Prestwood was on probation for beating his father in 1996 or that he had a lengthy criminal record.
Poovey was frustrated with the investigation into her father's killing.
"The police told me it wasn't a good murder case from the beginning," she said.
She said it was during a pre-trial meeting with the district attorney's staff and police investigators when she started having doubts about how her father's case was being handled. This led her to request a copy of the autopsy report.
"For some reason, I felt I needed to have it," Poovey said. "It was real hard to look at that, but I didn't want anyone else to see it."
A representative of the district attorneys office said the problem with the Hinson case was evidence.
"I think we had some serious evidence issues in that the only blood on the rake handle was that of the suspect," said Jason Parker, who worked the case in 1998. He now works for the Iredell County
District Attorney Office.
That would support Prestwood's account of the altercation being self-defense, Parker said.
Poovey said Prestwood testified that her father hit him first.
"Prestwood kneeled down in court to show how it happened," she said. "But Papa was 6-feet tall and he couldn't have reached far enough to hit him in the head."
The jury deliberated for about an hour before finding Prestwood acted in self-defense.
"When they came out and said, 'not guilty,' I couldn't believe it," Poovey said. "He was free to go."
The outcome meant the Hinson family did not get the chance to read a letter they had prepared for his sentencing.
Part of that letter ran in the July 15, 1999, edition of the Hickory Daily Record.
"Papa (Hinson) was a kind man. He would have given the shirt off his back to anyone if it could help them. That's what his relationship with Rick was based on. He didn't deserve to be beat to death by someone who called him a friend."
Prestwood's next court appearance in the Gilley case is scheduled for Nov. 13.
Email
Print
ADVERTISEMENT
Advertisement
